Windows Vista & Politically Correct “Security”

Before my first encounter using Windows Vista at work, I had no desire to install it at home. After encountering my first application compatibility problem, I will officially run screaming from it.

My company produces a build environment to support our mainstream product. It’s Windows based, and dates back all the way to Windows 95 environments … although most developers use it under Windows 2000/XP. I had the bright idea to test it under Windows Vista once my company got a version of the “release to manufacturing” (RTM) version.

Of course I expected it to break … why else would I bother to test it.

Two points in the build process break. One requires a small change to a utility which was based on a DOS programming model (don’t laugh, we’ve been making this product since the 1980′s). The other wouldn’t let the build process continue unless “User Access Control” is disabled. I managed to get that solution out of the help system without relying on an animated dog. I feel so special. “User Access Control” sounds and behaves like a security setting … so of course it’s not under the Security section of Control Panel.

But I digress. Our aim was to make the process continue without disabling previous security settings.

The engineer in my group writes up a bug in the database, and a small group of developers on a distant island start to investigate the problem. Sometime later we have a solution …

… rename the offending application.

The super elite security solution in Vista prevented our application from running because the filename contained the phrase “PATCH” (NEWPATCH.EXE) That’s it. Rename the file (NEWPITCH.EXE) and it works beautifully.

Has it come to this? Does Microsoft think that just the name of the application indicates harm? This is the same way politicians try to “solve” problems … “undocumented workers” instead of “illegal immigrants”, “war on terror” instead of “tracking down and killing a very specific group of terrorists” … has politically correct junk spread all the way into software?

Nah, it can’t be that complicated. Microsoft must just think hackers are stupid.

If you need me I’ll be patching our documentation. I’m sorry, I meant to say “modifying contents through insertion of new material into the middle of the existing file”.

Is ModifyingContentsThroughInsertionOf NewMaterialIntoTheMiddleOfTheExistingFile.exe too long for an NTFS filename?

Update: There’s a great page describing this behavior here … http://www.helpware.net/VistaCompat.htm

“Installer Detection” Policy = Automatic Elevation
This is a funny thing the first time you see it.
It turns out that Windows actually examines the names of all executable you run, and if they contain the words “setup”, “install”, “update”, “patch” etc then the executable is automatically elevated; e.g. MySetup001.exe will run elevated. I’ve heard of cases where a word such as “update” found within an executables resources also trigged elevation. I’ve also heard that Windows can recognize and elevate setup files created by InstallShield and Wise. I’m not sure of the exact heuristics used.